SMOKING PARENTS ARE KILLING THEIR INFANTS [07/30]

A new study shows that smoking by parents is a major cause of death
among infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and at
least one researcher has suggested that persons seeking to adopt
infants be questioned about their smoking habits.

Below are excerpts from two recent articles. Readers who know
smokers with infants, or who are considering adoption, might wish
to make copies of this information for them.

British researchers Thursday blamed parents
who smoke for more than half of crib deaths and said babies
should not be exposed to tobacco smoke at all.

More than 60 percent of all crib deaths, also known as sudden
infant death syndrome (SIDS), could be prevented if people
stopped smoking around their babies and pregnant women, the
report in the British Medical Journal said.

''The recent research makes it clear that fathers who smoke are
also a problem,'' Joyce Epstein of the Foundation for the Study
of Infant Deaths told a news conference.

''If we could remove all smoking from a baby's environment, we
estimate that cot deaths would fall by 61 percent,'' she said,
adding the findings were in line with studies underway in the
United States, New Zealand and Scandinavia.

If a mother smoked before as well as after the birth, the risk
rose, and the more a baby was exposed to smoke after birth, the
higher the risk.

For example, Fleming said babies whose parents smoked, but who
were never put into a room where anybody smoked, were still
twice as likely to die of SIDS than babies of nonsmokers.
Children of smokers who spent eight hours a day in a room where
someone sometimes smoked were eight times more likely to die.

''The risk increases crudely by 100 percent for every hour a day
a baby spends in a smoky atmosphere. This is startling,''
Fleming said. ''Please don't allow anybody to smoke in a room
where the baby sometimes goes.''

Fleming said the team had successfully disproved arguments that
it was the behavior of smokers that was to blame, not the smoke
itself.

Plea for adoption smoking rules

Adoption agencies should question would-be parents more
closely about smoking habits because of the cot death risk to
babies, a professor of infant health said yesterday. Prof Peter
Fleming, author of a study which found smoking is to blame for
two out of three cot deaths, said agencies should ask adoptive
parents whether they or anyone else in the home smoked.

"It is the baby's total exposure to cigarette smoke which
matters, not just whether the parents smoke," he said. "Babies
need to be in a smoke-free environment." Prof Fleming, of
Bristol University, said babies whose parents smoked but who
were not exposed to tobacco smoke were twice as much at risk as
those born to non-smokers. The risk was four times higher for
babies exposed to smoking for four hours a day, and eight times
higher for those babies who spent eight hours a day in a smoky
atmosphere, he said. Prof Fleming said: "The risk goes up 100
per cent for every hour a day the baby spends in a smoky
atmosphere. That is startling. Government advice five years ago
that babies should be put to sleep on their backs, rather than
on their fronts or sides, halved the cot death rate to about
500 deaths a year. Prof Fleming estimates a further 300 lives a
year would be saved if babies were kept clear of cigarette
smoke. His findings prompted the Government to issue a new
leaflet yesterday re-stating existing advice but emphasising
the importance to new-born babies of a smoke-free home. A
spokesman for British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering said
adoptive parents were already asked about their smoking habits
and Professor Fleming's recommendations would be considered by
its medical committee. when their suitability was being
considered.